1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular to wireless telephones and TCP/IP addressing
2. Description of Related Art
The use of wireless telephones, such as cellular and satellite telephones, continues to increase. One of the difficulties with the use of cellular telephones is the incompatibility of telephones in different parts of the world. A telephone that is compatible with the cellular communications system in the United States, for example, would not be compatible with the cellular communications system in Europe. Satellite systems have been developed that use a common communications technique worldwide, but these systems are typically more expensive to deploy and maintain than conventional land-based systems.
One of the other difficulties with telephone systems, in general, is the variety of systems that are used to provide telephone communications. Cellular telephones are separate and distinct from conventional wired telephone systems such as those used in a home or office. The telephone system used in an office environment is often substantially different from a system used at home. This variety provides different capabilities for different applications, but also introduces the requirement to learn how to use the variety of capabilities. Often, for example, calls are inadvertently disconnected when a less experienced person attempts to forward a call to another party in an office environment. Often, an infrequent cellular telephone user forgets to press the “send” button, and waits idly for the call to go through.
The existence of the variety of different telephone communication systems can also make it more difficult to contact someone. An average person is typically associated with two or more different telephone numbers: a home phone number, an office phone number, a cellular phone number, a beeper phone number, and so on. Contacting the person often requires calling these different numbers until the person is reached. Similarly, each of these different telephone numbers will typically have an associated message recording capability, and to determine whether he or she has received a message, the person must contact each of the message recording means associated with the variety of telephone numbers.
In like manner, the person's “service profile” is created and maintained on each of the variety of services independently. If the person desires to use the same speed dial numbers on his or her cell phone, home phone, and office phone, for example, the telephone numbers and corresponding speed dial number must be entered into each system.
If a person changes one of his or her associated telephone numbers, as is often caused by a change of cellular service provider, the person must notify each of his or her acquaintances. Some of these acquaintances will then have to update their two or three speed dial lists. If the changed telephone number is associated with a business, the change will typically necessitate a reprinting of office stationary, business cards, and so on. These telephone-change induced problems often prevent the person from taking advantage of potentially more economical service plans, because the potential savings are offset by the ancillary costs and inconveniences caused by a telephone number change.
Cellular telephone systems have an additional disadvantage in that the service is specific to a particular telephone instrument. A very small cellular telephone instrument is convenient for travel, but may not be suitable for extended use in an office environment. Existing cellular systems, however, do not allow two different telephone instruments to be associated with the same telephone number. To gain the convenience of a small portable telephone instrument and a larger office telephone instrument, a person must incur the cost of two individual telephone accounts, and must incur the aforementioned inconveniences associated with multiple telephone numbers.
Application programs are available that allow telephone, facsimile, and videoconferencing via the Internet. Generally, this adds yet another number or identifier to the list of telephone numbers associated with an individual.
Some of the inconveniences of multiple telephone numbers may be overcome by using call-forwarding on select lines to forward all incoming calls to a single number, but there is often a cost associated with such a call-forwarding option.